Cardinal Dolan Sets Agenda for Return to New York

ROME — After a week of indulging in Italian cooking, chatting with fellow new cardinals from around the world and sharing his elevation with crowds of visiting pilgrims, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said Monday that he was eager to return home and laid out four challenges to the archdiocese as among his priorities.

Cardinal Dolan spoke in an interview just before his formal audience with Pope Benedict XVI, the last ceremony of the week. Upon his return, he said, he first wanted the church to be more effective locally and nationally in its outreach to immigrants, particularly Latinos, who are no longer in Catholic schools in the numbers they once were.

“The church has been the engine of welcoming people, caring for them and getting them settled as happy, productive citizens who are loyal citizens and loyal Catholics,” he said. “It bothers me that for the first time in American Catholic history, we may not be responding well to the needs of immigrant children in our Catholic schools.”

Second, he wants the archdiocese to renew its focus on charity, because with the state of the economy, the needs of the poor are great. “A month ago, we had a food drive,” he said, “and we are already getting near out of food again.”

Third, he believes American bishops need to have a clearer and more effective pastoral message on heterosexual marriage, because so many Roman Catholics nationally are not marrying, and many are divorcing.

“We’ve got to be better heralds, trumpeters, about what beautiful, life-giving lifelong marriage is,” he said.

And fourth, literally at his doorstep, the archdiocese needs to raise about $160 million to fix St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“This just isn’t some face-lift,” he said. “We literally get two or three buckets of stones every day that have fallen. We are talking about safety, security, a new roof, leaks, those precious stain glass windows that are rattling.”

Nationally, Cardinal Dolan has been leading a charge by Catholic bishops against a White House mandate that would require some religious institutions, like Catholic hospitals, to provide health coverage for contraception.

It is a stance that has made him a hero to many of the hundreds of pilgrims who traveled with him in Rome, like Dennis J. Crilly, 69, from Somers, N.Y. “Dolan is going to be a voice in the wilderness crying out on moral issues” in the political sphere, he said. “He knows the moral true north and is not afraid to say it.”

But Cardinal Dolan said he and his fellow American bishops did not plan to align themselves with any particular candidate or party in the coming election, and instead plan to wield influence by speaking out on issues important to the church, like abortion and marriage.

Even the most loyal Catholics, he said, “cherish the fact that we are American and that our bishops do not interfere graphically in partisanship.” And beyond that, he said, that kind of approach can backfire. “We bishops are pretty realistic to know that sometimes one of the best things we can do for a candidate whom we may not particularly like is to dramatically support his or her opponent,” he said.

During the last week, as he celebrated his elevation in the church with 21 other new cardinals, he said he had learned about the problems that Catholics face in repressive nations like China — revelations, he said, that make him more grateful than ever to be an American.

It was a week of personal joy for the cardinal. Not only did he receive his red hat from the pope, but his appointment also allowed him to honor some of those closest to him.

On Monday, Cardinal Dolan clutched the elbow of his mother, Shirley, 84, as they mounted the white marble steps of a hangar-size Vatican reception hall for a formal audience with the pope. On Sunday, two of his nieces, Shannon Williams, 21, who had survived cancer as a child, and Erin Stidley, 34, whom he chose because she is pregnant, walked down the aisle of St. Peter’s to present the communion gifts.

But there were personal challenges, too, including to his effort to diet, which at banquets and lunches was in little evidence here.

His new cardinal’s ring is so tight that when reporters asked to take a closer look on Sunday, he could not remove it to show the inscription inside.

With the start of Lent on Wednesday, he said, “it will be no more pasta; it’s going to be a lot of celery sticks, celery sticks without any salt.”

Correction: February 20, 2012A previous version of this post misstated the day of a news conference as Monday.

What's Next

Looking for New York Today?

New York Today is still going strong! Though no longer on City Room, New York Today continues to appear every weekday morning, offering a roundup of news and events for the city. You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com or in the morning, on The New York Times homepage or its New York section. You can also receive it via email.

Lookin for Metropolitan Diary?

Metropolitan Diary continues to publish! Since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has been a place for New Yorkers, past and present, to share odd fleeting moments in the city. We will continue to publish one item each weekday morning and a round-up in Monday's print edition. You can find the latest entries at nytimes.com/diary and on our New York section online.

About

City Room®, a news blog of live reporting, features and reader conversations about New York City, has been archived. Send questions or suggestions by e-mail.